MOVIE REVIEW: Captain Underpants is an epic, absurd story

BEST pals George and Harold have been friends for years. The overly imaginative kids spend their school hours organising pranks and their after hours in their tree house writing comics.

The Year Four students' lives change forever when they accidentally hypnotise their school principal, Mr Krupp, into thinking he's a ridiculously enthusiastic, incredibly dimwitted superhero named Captain Underpants.

Enter the villain, Professor Poopypants, and the comedy is set.

It makes sense for the film to be released on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the first of the highly successful books by Dav Pilkey on which it is based.

Book fans will find this cinematic version is not a straight adaptation of the first book, but it is bright, noisy, loud and full of fart and poo jokes - just like the humour of any child.

A scene from the movie Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Contributed

This is, after all, the trademark of the books. And aren't poo jokes, fun and long-lasting friendship what kids want to see on screen?

The best feature of this film is, by far, the stunning animation: the images are true to the books but the 3D capabilities, the sound, movement and bright intensity of the work makes many sequences feel like they will break free of the screen and land directly into our grey matter, which by then was anything but grey.

Fans of the books will also be happy to hear that a staple of the printed series, Flip-o-rama, is also featured in the film, and it's quite the highlight of the whole audiovisual feast.

This is the sixth Dreamworks movie adapted from a children's book, after Shrek (2001), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Home (2015) and The Boss Baby (2017).

There is a lot of nostalgia in this film, but my four year-old twins didn't care about that. They just loved the action, the characters and, of course, the poo jokes.